


Sinful desires

by AlyCalypso



Series: Prompts [11]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 1960s Mental Institution, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Bipolar Disorder, Closeted Ian, Explicit Sexual Content, First Time, Happy ending (because of course I love happy endings), Heterosexual sex implied, Ian is married to a woman, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Old Timey Conversion Therapy, Some angst, Unsafe sex (it's the 1950s so of course they don't use condoms), cheating (not gallavich), mentions of suicide and self-harm, slight amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-25 06:01:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19739740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyCalypso/pseuds/AlyCalypso
Summary: Based on this prompt:"I would like to have a fic where Ian is the one that tries to hide to be gay. I wrote this: Ian and his girlfriend are looking for a roommate and they find Mickey. Ian starts to feel attracted to him. One day, Ian has the most amazing sex of his life with him. They have a secret relationship for 3 months, until Mickey asks Ian to choose. Ian for fear chooses her, when he learns that Mickey is about to leave, he freaks out because he realize that he is in love with him."Except I didn't quite follow the prompt, so it takes place in the 1950s-1960s, Ian is married to a woman and his wife is pregnant. They take Mickey in as a tenant and feelings happen (and sex).





	1. 1957, Chicago, Illinois

**Author's Note:**

> Somebody sent me this prompt about a thousand years ago, and I finally got around to write it. Hurray for me!  
> Thank you Anon who sent it, and sorry for the delay. I hope it's okay I changed a few things.
> 
> (Also read the tags please.)

The street lights flickered as the man turned around the corner, making his red hair shine as he walked at a steady pace. He made sure nobody was around, turning his head left and right, before going down the stairs to the public men bathrooms. It was a gloomy place with three urinals and three sinks, the lighting even worse than in the street. One other man was there, and they both made eye contact in the broken mirror. They met near the sinks, washing their hands slowly, and exchanging a few more glances. Then one of them made the move, and their lips went crashing together. They were about the same height and the same stature, both young and desperate. The redhead opened the zipper of his pants, and the other man slid his hand in his underwear, rubbing his hard member. The redhead imitated the action, and they stroke each other eagerly, releasing the tension of a hard day at work and a life of hiding.

***

Ian closed the door behind himself, stepping inside his warm house, and hearing loud chatting coming from the kitchen. A strange man was sat at the table, a bowl of soup in front of him, nodding once in a while to answer to Alice's inquisitive questions. His clothes weren't dirty, but showed definite signs of having being used and abused, his hair was dark and slicked back, there was permanent dirt or paint under his fingernails and crude ink tattooed on his fingers. Ian watched him sitting at his table as if at home for a long minute before he decided to announce himself.

“Um... Hello?”

Alice, ever the beautiful girl with her round face, blond hair and blue eyes, looked up at the same time than the stranger.

“Here's my husband!” she exclaimed with a tone full of reproach, standing up with a hand on her pregnant belly.

Ian smiled apologetically and took a step forward to kiss her on the cheek. He still kept an eye on the stranger though, who had now gone back to his soup, ignoring the young couple.

“Sorry, I was held up at work.” Ian lied easily, like he had done many times before. “Can I talk to you for a second? Alone?”

Alice rolled her eyes, but followed him into the living-room, her steps heavy and her flowery dress brushing her thighs making the fluttery sound of fabric the only thing Ian could hear. She closed the living room door behind them, making Ian uneasy as he didn't like leaving this random man alone in his kitchen, but being out of earshot could also have its advantages.

“Who is that man?” he asked as Alice sat on the green couch facing the fireplace.

“Our new tenant.” his wife smiled. “His name is Mickey, he's not a big talker but he seems nice.”

“Have you seen the tattoos on his fingers?” Ian exclaimed, he couldn't stand how happy she looked with all this. “He looks like a very unsavory character, and I'm not sure I want him around the house with a baby!”

Alice rolled her eyes at him again – she did that a lot. She sat back on the couch, making herself comfortable as Ian paced back and forth in front of her.

“Well the baby ain't here yet, is it?” she replied with a bite. “And we did agree that we need to rent the extra room to save money for this baby. This man was here when he said he would be, and he helped me put the groceries away because my husband was not around! He also paid two months in advance, so I say we keep him.”

Ian ran a hand from his hair to his face. Okay, this man didn't look the ideal tenant but he seemed to act like it so far, and if his wife trusted him then maybe he should to. He sighed. Alice always won their arguments anyway.

“Alright, but if things don't go well, I'll kick him to the curb myself.”

“Deal.” Alice grinned brightly, savoring her umpteenth victory.

***

Mickey was annoying the hell out of Ian. He didn't talk much, and Ian wasn't sure what kind of job he had – probably something illegal – but he was the perfect tenant, clean, polite and very helpful to Alice. He helped her with the groceries, the cooking, the cleaning, he was an overall better husband than Ian should have been. But there was something else, something about the way he looked at Ian sometimes, glancing at the redhead from the corner of his eyes and smiling like he knew too much, like he knew his deepest, darkest secret. Ian's blood was boiling every time the two men were in the same room, and even though Ian wanted him gone with every fiber of his body, the idea of Mickey leaving did unpleasant thing to his heart and stomach. Ian hated him. Mickey had no right to just be here, and make him feel things he wasn't supposed to feel, all that with only his presence.

“Stop looking at me like that!” Ian snapped one night as the two men met in the hallway, Ian coming back from the bathroom, and Mickey leaning against the door frame of his bedroom.

“Like what?” Mickey smirked, his arms crossed against his chest.

“Like that!” Ian whispered angrily, taking a step toward the other man, not wanting Alice to hear them.

“Okay then.” Mickey raised his hands in surrender. “I'll stop.”

The smirk hadn't fallen off of his face though, and Ian noticed they were standing extremely closed to each other. He hadn't been down to the public bathrooms in a few weeks, not since Mickey had arrived. He didn't want to leave Alice alone with him for too long at a time, but also it didn't quite feel right to meet with random men and come back home to find Mickey looking at him as if he knew exactly what he had been up to.

Mickey lifted an eyebrow, and Ian didn't hesitate before lurching forward, kissing him harshly. He didn't know what the hell he was doing and, for a quick second, he thought he had deeply mistaken all of the signs and saw himself being beaten to death. But then Mickey kissed him back, placing one hand on his cheek, and the other on his waist. Ian sighed contentedly, releasing the breath he had been holding every single day since Mickey's arrival in his life. Mickey's lips were softer than he had expected, and Ian moaned, parting his lips to let their tongues meet. He walked Mickey back against the wall and started grinding against him. This was good, this was way too good and sinful. Suddenly, something crashed on the carpeted floor and Ian jumped away, realizing Alice was still awake and alert in the bedroom.

“Shit...” he breathed, running a hand over his face and avoiding Mickey's eyes. “I need to... Good night.”

He rushed into his bedroom and closed the door a little too strongly behind himself. Alice was standing near the dresser and lifted her head to look at him warily. Her belly prominently showing from under he night gown was the only thing Ian could see.

“Are you okay?” she asked in her sweetest concerned wife tone.

“Yes.” Ian nodded with a fake smile. “The crashing sound just scared me. What happened?”

“Oh, I just knocked over the ugly ceramic cat my aunt Nora gave me.” Alice shrugged, looking back down at the shattered object, and bending her knees to grab the pieces.

“Let me.” Ian offered, stepping toward the small disaster while his wife went to sit on their bed.

He picked the pieces up one by one, putting them carefully in his hand, and leaving the smallest between the asperities of the carpet.

“You should use the vacuum cleaner.” Alice said matter-of-factly, and Ian nodded, dreading the moment where he would have to tell his wife that he still didn't know how to use the piece of modern technology her mother had offered them last year.

He stood up, throwing the fragments of ceramic in the wastebasket, and left the room to go grab what advertisement pamphlets called “the wife helper” from the cupboard under the stairs. Mickey wasn't in the hallway anymore, and Ian felt a little pinch in his heart at the idea. He went back to his room, where Alice explained to him, with a lot of rolling eyes, how to use such a simple tool that was the vacuum cleaner, and soon enough the ceramic cat incident was over and forgotten, and Ian was laying wide awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark. Alice was sleeping soundly next to him, and Ian's mind was replaying the kiss with Mickey over and over again. He had kissed men before, but this one had been so much more beautiful, dared he say even more beautiful than when he kissed his wife on their wedding day? He tossed and turned for another hour or so, before he finally made up his mind and stood up delicately from the bed, trying to make as less sound and movement as possible. He went to knock softly on Mickey's door but received no answer. He hesitated for a few more seconds, before he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Mickey was sleeping on his stomach, snoring lightly. Ian climbed on the bed and straddled Mickey's legs gently, leaning above him and kissing the soft skin of his neck. Mickey startled awake and sent Ian flying on the other side of the bed. He swore under his breath and turned his bedside lamp on, reveling a sheepish-looking redhead.

“Shit, you scared me.” Mickey smiled. “What you're doing here?”

Ian shrugged. Was _'I wanted you'_ an acceptable answer? The two men looked at each other for a beat, and Mickey grinned wider, shaking his head.

“Come on.” he whispered, grabbing Ian's arm to bring him closer. “Let's not wake up that wife of ours.”

He leaned in and kissed Ian again, grabbing his face in his hands, and pushing his tongue in his mouth. Ian accepted it with such hungriness it was almost scary. He felt Mickey's hands running under his shirt, trailing down to his ass. It felt good. His escapades in the men bathrooms never turned into something soft like this, it was always fast and lustful, and with one eye looking out for possible danger lurking in the shadows. Mickey was gentle, he took his time, and even though Alice wasn't far away, Ian was all in, he didn't care about anything else. And soon enough, he was imitating Mickey's movements, caressing the other man's skin all over, kissing his jawline, his neck, his shoulder... He moaned, and Mickey put his hand in his boxer shorts, grabbing Ian's hardening member. The redhead's breathing accelerated when Mickey started jerking him the way he liked, and he decided to return the favor, mirroring the action. In no time, both men were jerking each other off, panting heavily in each other's mouth. They increased speed at the same time, working in sync, trying their best to bring the other faster to the finish line. Ian came first, Mickey's hand felt so good on him, better than anything he had ever experienced. And Mickey wasn't far behind, spilling in Ian's hand with a deep grunt coming directly from the back of his throat.

***

It lasted a few weeks, Mickey being a perfect guest and helping Alice around the house, smiling discreetly at Ian every time he could as a reminder of their nightly meetings ; and Ian avoiding his house as much as he could during the day, not being able to look at his wife in the eyes anymore, cheating on her night after night – with a man to make the matter worse – eating himself out in guilt because of his infidelity and his unnatural attraction, without being able to stop his growing feelings for Mickey and wanting to be with him every second of every day. And that's how it went, weeks after weeks, bringing them here, kissing on Mickey's bed in the middle of the night, both completely naked for the first time. They had been kissing for a while, their erections pleasurably rubbing against one another, when Mickey suggested something new.

“Fuck me.” he mumbled against Ian's lips, not breaking the kiss.

The redhead pulled away though, sitting back on his heels.

“What?”

He knew that the many – many – things they had been doing weren't right, but they had never been that far.

“But it's... it's sodomy.” Ian whispered, frowning his eyebrows at Mickey. “It's a sin, and it's... it's _illegal_.”

“Everything we've been doing until now is illegal.” Mickey pointed out, lifting his upper body by resting on his elbows.

“Yeah, but...” Ian shook his head, not sure how he wanted to finish that sentence.

“We don't have to.” Mickey smiled gently, interrupting his internal turmoil.

Ian looked at him, looked at this beautiful naked man lying underneath him. He was already risking prison for him, risking loosing his wife and his future child, at this point going one step further shouldn't have bothered him that much, but it did, growing up in an Irish Catholic family had left some marks after all.

“I'll be doing all the heavy lifting, if it's helping.” Mickey supplied.

“What?” Ian repeated again.

“I'll take it up the ass.” Mickey laughed. “So it won't be too different than doing it with a woman. Still a sin, and still illegal, but at least your ass will be safe from God's wrath, or whatever the fuck the Bible says.”

“That's not really how it works.” Ian said with a small smile.

“I haven't spent much time at church.” Mickey shrugged, unapologetic, and Ian's heart fluttered a little.

This man would probably be the death of him – quite literally, Ian was never excluding the idea that he might get beaten to death for this one day – but he was also so wonderfully charming and extremely loveable.

“Okay.” the redhead nodded slowly. “I'll do it.”

Mickey smiled brighter, and sat up on his heels, matching Ian's position and facing the redhead. He gave him a quick peck before leaning toward his bedside table and opening the first drawer. He extracted a small round tin of Vaseline out of it and took some of it on his fingers.

“You want to do the honors?” Mickey asked, and Ian hesitated for a second before shaking his head no.

Mickey nodded and sat more comfortably, spreading his legs a little and bringing his hand to his entrance, breaching in with a first finger. He hissed – making Ian hiss with him – but he didn't stop, and Ian watched, mesmerized, as Mickey opened himself slowly. The redhead couldn't tear his eyes away, Mickey was just beautiful, seeming vulnerable but his expression filled with lust. And Mickey must have noticed Ian's gaze and his quickly growing erection, because he grabbed the redhead's hand and replaced two of his fingers with Ian's.

“Oh shit.” Ian breathed.

The sensation was intense, being inside Mickey, if only with fingers, and Ian knew instantly he wanted more. He leaned in to kiss Mickey passionately, moving his fingers inside of him, and the other man moaned, one of his hands still wrapped around Ian's wrist, guiding his movements.

“I need more.” Mickey mumbled against their lips, releasing his grip and pulling Ian's hand out.

The redhead nodded, agreeing eagerly, as Mickey put the tin of Vaseline in his hand without having to explain why. Mickey turned around, facing the wall and placing his hands on the headboard, and Ian rubbed his hard erection with some of the jelly product, before stepping behind Mickey, lining his penis with the other man's ass. He took a deep breath.

“Have you ever... done this before?” he asked, but already guessing the answer.

“Would it scare you if I said yes?” Mickey replied, turning his head to the side so he could look at Ian.

The redhead shook his head no. It actually reassured him in a way. Mickey caught his lips with his for a tender kiss, and Ian took advantage of the moment, with their lips busy and his eyes closed, to push himself inside. Mickey whined a little at the intrusion, and Ian stilled. It was so much, too much. He dropped his forehead against Mickey's shoulder, keeping his eyes closed and panting slowly.

“You okay?” the other man wondered.

“Yeah.” Ian murmured. “I just need some time...”

He took another deep breath, and felt Mickey kiss the back of his hand, giving him all the strength and courage he needed. He wrapped his arms around Mickey's lower body, and pulled almost all the way out before pushing back in, repeating the movement slowly a couple of times.

“You can go faster.” Mickey suggested, bracing his hands on the headboard again.

Ian nodded, and gave his next thrust more intensity, and the next one even more, and again, until he started pounding relentlessly into Mickey. Mickey's gripped the headboard so tight his knuckles turned white. His head hung low between his shoulders, and Ian could see sweat rolling from the curl of his neck. The redhead was sure he was in no better state. He felt the familiar tightest in his lower body, and he knew he wouldn't last much longer. And, just on cue, as if he had read Ian's mind, Mickey groaned a low:

“Touch me.”

Ian obeyed, reaching over Mickey's own leaking erection to give it a good squeeze and pump it a few times. The man came all over Ian's hand, and the redhead followed only a few seconds behind, gripping Mickey's hips tightly, stilling, and coming harder than he ever had before. He pulled out of Mickey immediately, falling on his back, his head near the foot of the bed. He breathed slowly, inhaling and exhaling, trying to regulate his respiration after such an intense experience. He could hear Mickey on the other side of the bed, doing the exact same thing.

“I think I know why it's a sin now.” Ian said with a smile, looking up at a crack in the ceiling.

“Because it feels so good?” Mickey supplied, and the redhead could hear that he was smiling too.

“Exactly.”

They stayed in this position for a while, enjoying the silence, until Ian heard Mickey light a cigarette.

“Hand me one?” he asked, and the other man moved, crawling above the redhead and resting his body on his chest.

Mickey kissed Ian lightly on the lips before putting the cigarette in the redhead's mouth and crossing his arms over his clavicle, not flinching a muscle when Ian blew smoke in his face.

“Mickey?” Alice's voice came through the door, accompanied by a light knocking.

“Shit!” both men exclaimed at the same time, standing up quickly, and putting as much clothes on as fast as they could. Ian had thankfully managed to put his entire pajamas back on when Alice knocked, more insisting, and Mickey went to open the door.

“What's going on?” he greeted as nonchalantly as possible as he flew the door open.

Alice looked around suspiciously but only raised an eyebrow when she spotted her husband sitting casually on the chair, having a smoke.

“What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” she asked both of them, but only looking at Ian.

“We were just talking, smoking.” he lied. “I couldn't sleep, and I noticed Mickey's light was on so I knocked.”

Alice waved her hand, apparently not buying the excuse, but not interested in hearing more at the moment. She opened her mouth to say something when her face distorted in pain, and she hunched over, both hands on her belly. Ian jumped out of his chair immediately.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” Alice shook her head, grabbing his hand. “I think the baby is coming.”

“I'll call an ambulance!” the redhead replied, already running downstairs.

***

Labor was long and painful, especially for Alice, but for Ian too. He sat on a wooden chair in an empty hallway for hours, staring at the old, ugly yellow paint on the walls. From times to times, a doctor or a nurse walked by, but they never had news for him.

Mickey had stayed at home when they had left in the ambulance. Ian had glanced one last time at him, and Alice had planted her fingernails in the skin of his arm. It could have been from the pain of giving birth, but Ian knew she was angry at him, she was punishing him in her own way. And he didn't even have time to explain or apologize before she was taken away in a delivery room and he was left alone in the hallway.

He was still wearing his pajamas, but no one seemed to care – it was the middle of the night in a hospital after all – and he couldn't help himself from replaying the events of the night over and over again in his head. It seemed a lifetime ago since he was inside Mickey, feeling more pleasure than he had ever have in his entire life. He couldn't wait to go back home, go back to him and do that again. But he also felt guilty, incredibly guilty, because here he was, in the hospital, waiting for his wife to give birth to their child and thinking of a man in the most sinful way.

When the nurse finally came out of the room, smiling happily at him and announcing that he was a father and that both mother and baby were healthy, his heart tightened. Shit. He was a father. He had this huge responsibility now and all he could think about was kissing another man.

He was led to the resting room, where Alice and three other women were lying down in bed, a crib by their side with a sleeping baby in it. He nodded politely at the other women, his hat in hands, and walked slowly to his wife. She didn't look up when he approached, whether it was deliberate or not, she kept her eyes on their baby, so Ian did the same. It was very tiny, all bundled up in a white blanket, with only its head coming out, its eyes closed, and very little red hair on top of its head.

“It's a girl.” Alice said, her voice strained and tired.

Ian smiled. Their daughter was beautiful.

***

Alice didn't speak or look at him for the remaining of the day, and around 6 o'clock Ian was kicked out, told that he needed to let mother and baby rest and that he could come back tomorrow. He kissed their daughter on top of her tiny head and went to kiss Alice but she turned her head away from him. So he just left. He was almost excited to come home to tell Mickey about little Jenny and how gorgeous and tiny she was, and how he had spent hours that day just watching her sleep.

The house was dark when he opened the front door, and Mickey wasn't in the kitchen or in the living room. Ian went up the stairs, directly to the room they had decided to rent. Mickey wasn't there. The bed was perfectly made and the room was in order. The dresser and the bedside tables were empty. Mickey was gone.


	2. 1962, Chicago, Illinois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In 1962, Illinois became the first state to remove criminal penalties for consensual sodomy from its criminal code, almost a decade before any other state. All the other states changed their law between the 1970s and 2003.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't forget to pay attention to the dates in the chapters' titles ;)

Mickey hauled the heavy bag on his left shoulder, huffing under the weight. He walked the ten feet he was required to walk and dumped the bag in the back of the truck, before going back for another bag. Working at the docks wasn't too bad if you managed to forget how fucking heavy everything was. At least it was legal, which hadn't always been the case for all of Mickey's career paths, and if, from time to time, he was paid to discreetly collect a package from a ship and bring it to a back alley, nobody needed to know about it. All in all, it paid the rent Mickey owed on his tiny bedroom in Little Italy. It hadn't been hard for him to pretend to be from Italian decent with his dark hair and all, he just had to change his name to Moretti, pick up a few colloquialisms here and there and his neighbors didn't notice anything. He had been living in Chicago for a little over six years now and not once had he missed his natal Pennsylvania. He didn't miss the farms, or the never ending fields, he didn't miss the old people reminiscing about Ukraine, he didn't miss the fact that he knew everyone and that everyone knew him, and, most of all, he didn't miss his father. He had sneaked out in the middle of the night, a few hours before he was supposed to marry this girl his father had shipped for him from the old country, and he had headed West, hoping on a freight train and walking along deserted roads until he reached Chicago and decided he liked the city enough to settle here. And now here he was, pretending to be Italian and walking the streets like he belonged there.

He grabbed another bag of what he had been told was sugar, hauled it on his left shoulder and began walking the ten feet separating him from the truck. He didn't see the kid come, he just felt something brush against his legs. Then somebody screamed “Stop that kid!” and one of the fishermen bumped into Mickey with all his weight, sending him crashing to the floor under his bag of sugar.

“What the fuck?”

The fisherman scrambled to his feet, quickly apologized and kept running after the kid. Two of Mickey's coworkers stood over him, laughing their asses off at his predicament.

“Stop laughing, you assholes, and get this bag off me!”

They helped, but kept laughing and Mickey cursed them even more. The fisherman came back a couple of minutes later, empty handed.

“Damn kid, stole a six pounds bass like it was nothing.”

One of Mickey's coworkers shook his head.

“Little street scums... I will never allow my kids to even set foot on the docks. Not a place for a brat.”

“Well before having kids you need to find yourself a lady! You and Moretti over there will end up old maids!”

“Shut the fuck up.” Mickey scoffed. “I don't need to find myself no lady to tell me what time to come home and how many drinks I can have. I'm perfectly happy sleeping around with whoever's willing when I feel the need.”

And his coworkers didn't need to know that he didn't want a lady, period. Mickey wasn't ashamed of his preference and he was never afraid to look for what he needed, but he didn't exactly fancy a beating on the docks by revealing his inclination to his coworkers. So he kept his sex life quiet and he didn't mind letting everyone think he would never settle down. To be honest, he had never thought about settling down himself, never thought it was in the cards for him due to his particular lifestyle, until he had met a certain redhead. Five years ago, he had answered a classified from a young married couple looking for a tenant. He had met the wife first, and she was nice enough to make him want to move in, but then her husband had walked in and Mickey had thanked a god he didn't believe in for the existence of that man. He was not only a perfect eye-candy, he also gave off a certain something Mickey knew wasn't quite straight. And he had been right. The few weeks he had spent sharing a bed every night with Ian had been the best few weeks of Mickey's life. But when the wife had gone into labor, Mickey had felt he was disturbing the quiet peace of this family, and he left. He didn't want this child to grow up in a household where the random tenant was coming between the mother and the father, it wasn't right. So he had given up the only good thing he had ever have for this child's sakes. And now he was jumping from meaningless man to meaningless man without thinking twice about it.

***

The man on his knees wasn't too bad, and Mickey rested his head against the dirty wall in the dark back alley they were in, waiting for pleasure to hit him. Something caught his eyes though, before he could finish. Something moved behind a wooden box. It could have been a cat, or a stray dog, but then two eyes seemed to be looking right at him. Mickey pushed back the man on his knees and sent him away without real explanation. He zipped his pants back on and took a step toward the box. Something shifted and he could have sworn he saw red hair.

“Come out of here!” he grunted.

He waited for only a short moment before a child came out from behind the box. It was a little girl, her dress was slightly torn, her face was as dirty as her clothes and she indeed had red hair. She couldn't have been older than six and she was holding tight against herself a heavy looking fish wrapped in paper.

“You're going to Hell.” was the first thing she told Mickey. “My mommy says two men shouldn't do things with their private parts or they're going to Hell.”

“Yeah? And your mommy didn't tell you that stealing could send you there as well?”

The girl's face fell for a second. She looked down at the fish and seemed about ready to drop it like it was burning hot. But then she composed herself and looked back up at Mickey with an air of challenge.

“No. She sent me out to get dinner and told me I could do whatever I wanted to get it.”

The words broke Mickey's heart. Such a young child being sent out by her own mother with the clear implication that she needed to steal her dinner, it shouldn't have been allowed. He bit his lower lip.

“What about your daddy?”

A flicker of sadness crossed the child's eyes.

“He's away.”

“Away?”

The girl shrugged, she clearly didn't know more than that. She was so small, thin and terrible looking, Mickey felt the strong urge to help. This wasn't usually him, he had always been an “every man for himself” type of guy, but maybe this hungry looking girl reminded him of his sister on the worst winters, or maybe it was the red hair that did it.

“This fish looks heavy.” he said with a kind smile. “Do you know where you live? I can help you carry it there.”

The girl only seemed to hesitate for a couple of seconds before she handed him her dinner. Such a young child and so trusting, who could let her go out by herself?

Mickey followed the girl through many streets, carrying the smelly fish and starting to regret being such a good Samaritan, his clothes would stink for days. But then the girl showed him around an all too familiar neighborhood, and Mickey's heart dropped with every step. He knew where he was going, he just knew it, and he hated it. The five year old red haired child, he should have known. Or maybe he had known all along and that was the reason he had helped. The girl stopped in front of the house Mickey had lived in all those years ago, and he swallowed dryly. The girl walked up to the door and knocked a 3-2-3-1 pattern. The door opened not long after and the child rushed inside, leaving a tired-looking Alice in her wake. The woman had deep circles under her eyes, her blond hair was all over the place, and she was holding a fussy baby on her hip. Mickey was still standing in the street, holding the fish. When Alice met his eyes, her glance darkened.

“What are you doing here?”

Mickey took a step forward and held the fish up.

“I met your girl in the street. She stole this fish and I just... I guess I wanted to help her. I didn't know...”

He didn't finish his sentence, they both knew what he meant. Alice switched the baby from one hip to the other in order to grab the fish.

“You've always been a helpful one, weren't you?”

Her tone had a certain bite to it, making Mickey understand it wasn't a compliment. He wanted to ask. He wanted to ask about Ian and why the child's dad was “away”, but he was also quite afraid what Alice would do to him – and what she had done to her husband.

“Well, thanks.” she said, holding the fish precariously until the baby slapped her with his little chubby hand and she dropped their dinner.

Mickey took another step forward.

“Maybe I can help you bring it in? Maybe help you cook dinner?”

She eyed him for a long minute. Maybe he felt guilty for the state they were all in, maybe that was it. And then Alice disappeared inside the house, leaving the fish on the floor and the door wide open, so Mickey took that as his clue to follow her into the kitchen. The inside of the house was a true mess, it was dirty and nothing was in place like Mickey remembered. He grabbed the only clean looking pan he could find and started preparing the fish as Alice found an old bottle and started giving it to the baby to soothe him. The girl was gone somewhere, probably in her room – Mickey's old room. After a few minutes of silence, he cleared his throat and decided to ask an innocent enough question.

“What's their names?”

Alice sighed. She seemed annoyed by Mickey but also grateful for the help.

“Jenny.” she tilted her chin toward the stairs. “And this one is Tom, my dad's name.”

Mickey nodded and went back to his cooking. Alice spoke again when he had his back turned away from her.

“I've been alone since before Tom was born.” her voice was broken, both from exhaustion and sorrow. “He was a good father but... He couldn't... He had to go away...”

Mickey swallowed dryly. He paused in his cooking and turned back toward Alice.

“Where is he?”

She put the baby on the floor and let him crawl away before meeting Mickey's eyes.

“He wasn't well. The treatment it... It didn't help.” her voice wavered as a first tear rolled down her cheek. “He was still... _unnatural_. And then it got worse. He never slept, he had too much energy. One time he didn't come home for three days. He quit his job, said he had all these ideas to make us rich. And then he just...”

A deep sob came from her throat, swallowing the end of her sentence. Mickey couldn't help himself, he came to pat her on the shoulder. As soon as he was near her, she grabbed his shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

“Oh Mickey! I love him, but I just... I couldn't...”

Mickey took a deep breath, and patted Alice's back lightly. He also wanted to cry but he couldn't afford it, not right now.

“What kind of treatment was it, Alice?”

“Something hormonal, the doctor said it would help him not being... the way he was...”

“You mean attracted to men?”

Alice nodded in Mickey's neck.

“Jesus...”

“And it worked for a little while. He didn't like it, but he did it, for us. And I got pregnant again. But then... It was like he... he broke. The doctor said it wasn't because of the treatment, and when he tried... He tried to... The doctor sent him to the asylum.”

Mickey grabbed the woman by the shoulders to look at her in the eyes.

“What did he try to do, Alice?”

Alice shook her head, her eyes full of tears, she seemed incapable of saying the words and it only led Mickey to imagine the worse.

***

There weren't a lot of mental hospitals in Chicago, on the contrary, so Mickey didn't have much trouble finding where Ian had been sent. He had spent the rest of the day with Alice, finishing to help her with dinner, making sure the kids and herself were well fed before leaving. The woman had almost seemed sad to see him go, and he guessed she hadn't had much help – or money – this past year. But then this lead him to think about Ian being locked up in a mental asylum for over a year and he just couldn't handle the thought, he had heard such horror stories about these places, about brains being fried and drilling into the patients' heads. So, as soon as he had a day off, Mickey went on to find where the redhead was. He found the place quite easily but had much more trouble visiting him, he wasn't family. But he was smart and conning enough to “borrow” a groundskeeper outfit and let himself in on the premises. Thankfully, he didn't have to search long, as it was a beautiful day and most patients were out on the grounds of the property, taking advantage of the sun while they could. He found Ian sitting by himself on a bench, far away enough from the nurses for Mickey to approach him without raising immediate suspicion. Ian was staring into the void, in front of him, without moving a muscle, not even when Mickey stood in front of him.

“Hi.”

The redhead looked up at the sound. He stared at Mickey blankly for a long minute. Mickey gave him a small smile. Finally, Ian spoke.

“Mickey?”

Mickey's smile grew bigger.

“Yeah. Hi.”

“Are you real?” Ian's tone of voice raised slightly. “Am I having another episode?”

Mickey sat next to him and grabbed his hand. Ian looked down at their hands with his creepy neutral expression still on.

“I'm real. I'm here.” Mickey rushed. “Are you okay?”

Ian looked back up at Mickey.

“I think. How did you find me?”

“Alice told me.”

“Alice?”

“Your... wife?”

Ian stared at Mickey for a long moment, blinked like he was trying to remember something.

“Oh. Right.” he said, neither affected by the fact that he had a wife nor by the fact that he didn't seem to recall her a minute ago.

Mickey squeezed his hand harder. Ian didn't react. He looked back at the grounds in front of him, showing his profile to Mickey who couldn't help but notice the reddish round shape on his temple. He ran his fingers over it.

“What did they do to you?”

“They helped.” Ian simply said. “They helped quiet the voices in my head.”

“But at what cost?”

“I'm fine.” Ian said again, this time with the tiniest, fakest smile. “I tried to kill myself, you know.”

Mickey had guessed that much, but the way Ian said it sent a chill down his spine. He lowered his fingers to rest his hand on the redhead's cheek.

“Do you want to stay here?”

Ian seemed to think about it.

“I don't know.” he said after a while.

Mickey sighed. He dropped his hand.

“I think Jenny misses you.” he admitted. “And Tom doesn't really know you but I'm sure he misses his daddy.”

“I remember Jenny...” Ian whispered, this time accompanied by a real smile. “She was so... bright. I love her.”

Mickey smiled too. He didn't want to insist about Tom, he wasn't sure Ian had ever met him and if he had, he didn't want to open the wound of Ian potentially not remembering one of his children.

“So do you want to get out of here? To see Jenny?”

“Do I have to go back to Alice?” Ian seemed almost frightened at the idea, he held on to Mickey's hand a little tighter.

“No.” Mickey had to answer, even though he couldn't make any promises. “No you don't.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The discovery of the mood stabilizing effect of lithium carbonate by John Cade in 1948 would eventually revolutionize the treatment of bipolar disorder, although its use was banned in the United States until the 1970s. Until then, electroconvulsive therapy was the preferred method to cure depression and mania.”
> 
> EDIT: I chose Pennsylvania for Mickey’s homebase because apparently Pennsylvania had a large Ukrainian population at the time. And I also liked the idea of Mickey coming from a farm in the countryside instead of Chicago.


	3. 1964, near Pontiac, Illinois

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had initially planned on writing only two chapters, two parts, of this story, but when I finished Chapter 2 I felt like this story needed a better conclusion. So this is just a short epilogue, but damn is it fluffy and happy!

Most of the time, things were fine. But sometimes, he couldn't remember where he was, how he had ended up here or who were the people around him. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, panicking and thrashing around. But every time, no matter the trouble, Mickey was here for him. It had been two years since Mickey had “rescued” Ian from the mental hospital and he hadn't left his side since. Like right now, gently stroking his back after Ian had sat up in bed, not knowing where he was and looking around in panic.

“You're safe, you're good, we're good.” Mickey repeated softly until Ian's breathing came back to normal.

Ian felt Mickey press a gentle kiss on his back, between his shoulder blades. He smiled and grabbed Mickey's hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss him in return, to thank him and to tell him he was okay. Mickey was his anchor, bringing him back to reality. Even when his brain started to run faster and faster until it was keeping him up at night and making him have crazy ideas, Mickey was there. Even when he felt like the whole world was resting on his shoulders and he couldn't take it anymore, couldn't get out of bed, Mickey was there. Ian had never thought he'd be so lucky one day.

_***_

The house was larger than anything they could have ever afforded in Chicago, with its three bedrooms and the fields surrounding it, but they weren't in Chicago anymore and it was home. Mickey had sworn he would never go back to farming, but when Ian had expressed the need and desire to get out of the city, they had found an old farm to buy in the outskirts of Pontiac, Illinois. Mickey didn't mind the land and animals so much because, weirdly, it helped for Ian to do all the farm work, to be out in nature all day, with the fresh air, the sun, the chickens and the cows. It helped him focus on the here and now, even when he didn't remember things, and even when his mood swings became hard to handle. And Mickey worked in the town, in an auto shop on the side of Route 66, refilling gas tanks and fixing parts, it wasn't glamorous but it was better than the docks. They had brought Alice along too, because neither Ian nor Alice wanted to be separated from their children, so they came up with a compromise. Alice had her own room in the house, as Ian shared with Mickey. They were still officially married, and the folks in town were lead to believe Mickey was simply a tenant, but in the privacy of their home they didn't even try to pretend anymore. Alice was glad to find stability and a healthy home for her children, so she kept her religious opinions for the church she volunteered at a couple of days a week. Jenny and Tom never asked any questions, they just loved having their dad back home, and having him smiling and happy. They also got along tremendously well with Mickey, he told them incredible stories, played with them and protected them against all dangers. True, most stories were frowned upon by their parents, the games were sometimes hazardous and the dangers were mostly grass snakes, but the thrill was the fun of it. They formed a strange but functional family.

***

Ian was standing in the kitchen, pressed against the counter, looking out the window with this blank stare Mickey had seen on him that day he had found him in the mental hospital, and many times after that.

“You okay?” he asked, walking on eggshells like every time Ian seemed _disconnected_.

Ian turned to him and smiled a smile that lit up his entire face and reached his eyes.

“Yeah. Come see.”

So Mickey obeyed and he came to stand next to the redhead, looking out the window. Outside, in the grass, Tom was holding a stick twice his size and chasing his sister around with it. Alice was hanging the laundry on the string while keeping an eye on her children, making sure they didn't kill one another. All three of them were healthier, thicker, cleaner and pinker than when Mickey had found them two years ago. Ian bumped his hips against his playfully.

“I'm happy, Mick.” he said, and when Mickey looked up, Ian was staring at him like he hung all the stars in the sky.

“I'm glad you are.” he answered. “I'm happy too.”

Ian placed his hands on Mickey's hips and spun him around so that they were chest against chest. He kissed him, soft and loving, and they rested their foreheads against each other's.

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, with electroconvulsive therapy, patients suffered memory loss and confusion for the rest of their lives and it didn't actually help with bipolar disorder on the long term, it just lessened the mania and depression at the time of use, so Ian will never be truly well in this universe, but at least he's loved and has a great support system.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave kudos and/or comments. And you can also come talk and share with me on my [tumblr](http://ilostmylifeonline.tumblr.com/), it's always appreciated. :)


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